Frugal by choice or necessity?

**Englishlady** · 04-04-2005, 04:25 PM

I was wondering how many of you are Frugal by choice or by neccessity?

I lost my income following a car accident 10 years ago, now I can longer work, I have found that my natural instinct to use things in creative ways has been honed to not-quite-perfection

Although we could spend more than we do, I prefer to be debt free and live a simple life in order that dh can retire early.

So what lead you to be the Frugal person you are today?

Was it your own choice?

Job loss or change?

Circumstances beyond your control?

Karen

**slowtypinwoman** · 04-04-2005, 04:43 PM

By nessisity. I wish it were by choice. Although I love saving money, I wish I didn't have to fret so much about it.

**thrifty gal** · 04-04-2005, 04:58 PM

We are frugal, by choice, out of necessity.

Let me explain. We don't have to be frugal here, in the sense that if we don't we won't be able to pay our bills, etc. BUT, we have to be if we are going to have dh's retirement fully funded, be debt free, and have money in the bank for a rainy day. Hope that makes sense!

**PrairieRose** · 04-04-2005, 06:32 PM

I was raised by frugal parents, so I never really thought that much about it until I was grown and noticed how some people were with their money. Then I suppose you'd say I'm frugal by choice nowadays but have seen the times that it was out of necessity. I think that if a money tree were to pop in my backyard I'd still be frugal for the most part.

**hollyhill** · 04-04-2005, 06:42 PM

By Necessity, my husband lost his job over a year ago and has returned to school full time to retrain. We often are living on prayer. I am homeschooling and working part time where ever I can fit it in.
We have always been frugal by nature so we have no CC debt but now our student loans are mounting!!! I agree with Marcia

"By nessisity. I wish it were by choice. Although I love saving money, I wish I didn't have to fret so much about it."

Hangin in there.

__________________

**AmyBoz** · 04-04-2005, 06:48 PM

It swings back and forth. Right now it's by choice. When I was on maternity leave with both kids, it was by necessity. I think that even if we win the lottery, we'd be frugal because when doing it by necessity, we found that we enjoyed living this way.

**pita1213** · 04-04-2005, 08:52 PM

by necessity. it started when we moved from VA to CT. childcare cost more than i would have been able to make so i stayed home with the kids. even though dh got a cost of living increase, it still didn't totally make up for my lost income so i had to get creative with saving money where i could. the easiest being the grocery budget. the hardest area is getting dh to plan purchases and not to pay full price whenever possible. my frugalness could slide some and we'd be ok financailly, but i want to be able to quit my job in the next year or so and still be able to pay things off so right now it is by choice.

**Mommy2five** · 04-05-2005, 02:49 AM

Hubby makes enought for us to live comfortably. We do have a lot of "extras". But we also know that we don't NEED a new couch or a New this or that. We do splurge on the things that we REALLY WANT. We are working on being frugal and debt free because when we buy a house (in a few years hopefully if the army is nice enough to send us somewhere we like) we want a nice house that is big enough for our family to grow into comfortably.

**britbunny** · 04-05-2005, 03:52 AM

Kind of by choice, I gave up work nearly 2 years ago so we needed to cut our spending. Since then though we have talked about, and decided against, me returning to work. So we are frugal so this continues to be the case.

also once I saw how much I was being ripped off for things I decided to change.

**Michele Annette** · 04-05-2005, 10:16 AM

Well, we do it for both reasons. We like living frugal and do a lot of things by choice. We still are paying off some debt and we would like to buy a house eventually. DH is moving to Denver for a 90 day trial period at a new job. Even thought the job is a lot more money, I will be paying the full rent and utilities here for those three months, while he is gone and living in a temporary place. If he likes the job and area we will be moving. Then we will be frugal out of necessity until we can get back on our feet and I find a new job.